Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

T Murphy writes "A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry links daily consumption of candy at the age of 10 to an increased chance of being convicted of a violent crime by age 34. The researchers theorize the correlation comes from the way candy is given rather than the candy itself. Candy frequently given as a short-term reward can encourage impulsive behavior, which can more likely lead to violence. An alternative explanation offered by the American Dietetic Association is that the candy indicates poor diet, which hinders brain development. The scientists stress they don't imply candy should be removed from a child's diet, although they do recommend moderation. The study controls for teachers' reports of aggression and impulsivity at age 10, the child's gender, and parenting style. The study can be found here, but the full text is behind a paywall."

Not sure why the organic food industry would have an interest in funding a study like this. Maybe you're assuming that organic!=junk food. This isn't the case, as there are plenty of companies producing organic junk food, such as chocolate, high fat ice cream and deep fried snacks like potato and corn chips. Consuming organic food doesn't guarantee a healthy diet, that's still up to the individual.

Yeah, we all know we can't trust any of these "scientific" studies because the organic food corporations are so much more gigantic, rich and powerful than the fast-food corporations.

It's like global warming. It's all a lie. The tree-hugging hippies have soooo much money and power that they bought all the scientists, the media and all the politicians, too. The poor oil corporations don't have a chance.

"Organic" refers to how it's grown and produced, not how nutritious is is (other than that it is more likely to lack "negatively nutritious" contamination by pesticides, herbicides, GMOs, etcetera).

Indeed. However, you might want to note that even though the aforementioned is true, HFCS isn't in the stuff labeled "Organic" as it doesn't meet the criteria for the same. HFCS is actually nutritionally worse than Sucrose is and we won't get into things like Aspartame. Going with "organic" is likely to be eve

For an excellent overview of this story I recommend this critique of the paper [www.nhs.uk] from the English NHS's excellent Behind the Headlines [www.nhs.uk] service. Unlike a newspaper it will tell you who did the study, how it was funded, where the data came from and whether the results are worth anything. In this case the data was severaly limited and had put people into either "eating sweets every day" or "not eating sweets" which is very coarse categorising.It also doesn't report the absolute number of children who went on to become adult offenders. In conclusion

"Overall, this study on its own does not provide strong enough evidence to guide childhood dietary advice, although common sense says that eating too many sweets is probably not good for children. Before the newspapersâ(TM) explanation for a link can be believed there must be studies specifically designed to investigate the issue from the outset."

..."eating sweets every day" or "not eating sweets" which is very coarse categorising.

This is often done to get a significant test result. A Chi2 correlation test will give different results depending on the "bin" sizes.

So you start with fine grained bins and then start pooling until you get a significant test. If you still don't get a significant result, try other tests that can be used. This of course creates massive problems for the validly of any "significant" result.

Hang on a second, are you seriously expecting Slashdots mainly american audience to read something by the socalist NHS? Quite clearly the reason for the NHS denying this study is that they WANT people to get ill to continue their socialist principles.

Next time you hear people decry the "socialist" NHS think on this report and ask how in the US medical system is focusing on prevention.

The NHS knows candy sells and keeps UK candy workers running production lines 24/7.
The only "prevention" the "socialist" UK system as a whole is interested in is loss of tax income and loss of jobs.
More UK workers making cheap mind dumbing candy, more UK workers paying tax, more tax and the NHS budget grows.
A "safe" candy scare is not good. The cost of looking after a few offenders in their 20-40's vs a shake up to real taxes?
Unless you have flipper babies again, an MP tests for plastic/heavy metals,

"Overall, 69% of respondents who were violent by the age of 34 years reported that they ate sweets nearly every day during childhood. Sweets were eaten this regularly by 42% of those who were non-violent."

Criminals which have been eating candies when they were 10 are dump at the age of 34. The criminals which did not eat candies at the age of 10 are less likely to be caught.

And if I see again this: "Thirty-five of those children went on to report at age 34 that they'd been convicted of a violent crime, the researchers found.".... they make a statistical statement about a sample of 35! Gosh! The study is not worth even a single penny (nor a candy)!

The researchers theorize the correlation comes from the way candy is given rather than the candy itself. Candy frequently given as a short-term reward can encourage impulsive behavior, which can more likely lead to violence
So bad parenting is the cause of criminal behaviour? Who would have thought...

Parents who regularly give their kids candy usually are the sort of parents who aren't disciplining their kids. Candy is often used by such people as a replacement for parental authority in controlling their kids' behavior.

> Candy is often used by such people as a replacement for> parental authority in controlling their kids' behavior.Actually, it can be even worse than that.

There are parents out there who make absolutely no attempt whatsoever to control their kids' behavior or teach them *anything*, at all, ever. They let them eat quite literally whatever they want, which generally does not result in anything you could describe as a healthy diet. And they let them *do* whatever they want, which doesn't necessarily re

In my observation, the kids whose parents make NO attempt to control their kids' behaviour wind up in better shape than those kids whose parents attempt to BRIBE their kids' behaviour.

The do-nothing parent at least doesn't actively warp the kid. The kid may not learn anything from his parents, but he will learn when other people whack him upside the head for being a mannerless little prick. He may even develop urges to more-mature behaviour on his own (to gain respect from peers, teachers, or whoever), thus

too many sweets leads to tooth decay - which would require more visits to the dentist. Maybe it's this which leads to increased levels of violence?

It seems to me there are too many uncontrolled (and probably even more unknown) variables for any meaningful conclusions to come from this. The biggest thing that's missing from all these social science studies is any sort of objective or quanitfiable units of measurement. Until they can all agree on HOW violent, in standardised units, there's nothing worth dis

When will people finally learn? Studies like that are just stupid. Absolutely nothing was shown here.

Simple explanation (just an example of cause):Less educated families tend to give their children more sweets. Lack of education is responsible for criminal activities (causality assumed for this example). In such a scenario there would of cause be a correlation between sweets and crime but obviously no causality.

If you eat candy as a replacement for love, you are more likely to be violent because of a lack of love.

Just a theory. And one way of many. But I've seen it too often, that a addiction, being itself a replacement for something else you need, does mean that when you don't get it, you become desperate and do things that you normally would not do. Not specifically violence. More like when you destroy everything around you because you can't stand the situation. (Similar to rage.)

We should be clear about those two things:1. Candy is a likely candidate for addictions.2. Addictions always are a replacement for a lack of something else.So find that something else, and help the person get that stuff so much, that they forget the addiction because they don't need it anymore.

For children, this usually is the lack of good parents.(I said for a long time, that social and parenting skills must be an essential skill you learn in a class in school! [Which for the second generation will mean that they also learn it from their now capable parents at home.])

Candy is addictive. It's not candy though, it's sugar and it only matters a little bit where it comes from. Sucrose vs. Fructose is basically irrelevant because wonder bread vs. sucrose is not really a competition. To your body, they're the same thing. That's one reason this study is stupid. You could never allow your child to eat a candy bar, but serve them cap'n crunch for breakfast every day and you're just begging for juvenile diabetes.

With halloween coming up, just try refusing to give sweets (american translation: candy) to the little beggars that come calling. See if those who don't get given sweets are more or less violent than those who do.

Isn't it very possible the a persons diet when they're 10 is likely to be an indicator of their parents conscientiousness. If you accept that to be true then all this study really shows is that people with conscientious parents are less likely to be violent criminals. And I think most people would regard that as a no brainer....

The big problem with Anglo-Celtic society, is that we always love to yammer on about our rights and inalienable right to individual freedom, but never our responsibilities to each other.

Libertoons who try to defend the indefensible in the name of "freedom" and "individual liberty" annoy the hell out of me. They're every bit as bad as Marxists, religious crazies and animal rights extremists.

Libertoons who try to defend the indefensible in the name of "freedom" and "individual liberty" annoy the hell out of me. They're every bit as bad as Marxists, religious crazies and animal rights extremists.

I am a bit confused by this comment -- what are you calling indefensible -- giving children candy? I agree, bad parenting is bad news, but how are we going to go about solving that? A child will be much better off in the end with jack-off, irresponsible parents than if you rip them out of the home and into foster care. We need to educate people to make the right choices. And yes, I will defend the rights of parents to give their children candy, just because the last thing we need is more government interv

Are you dense? Did you even read what I wrote? I specifically covered serious abuse and neglect as situations in which the government needs to step in. Both of the incidents you mentioned SHOULD have been taken care of by the systems currently in place, and the tragedy was caused by a string of failures by individuals. Tweaking the system to make it work more efficiently and to more accurately diagnose abuse and neglect = good. Expanding the breadth of influence the gov't has over what decisions you can and

Even that study could have been done better but it was enough to get the point across. Petrochemical food additives such as artificial coloring (FD&C anything), flavoring and preservatives (BHA, BHT, some others) are inherently toxic and immune response to them varies wildly between individuals. With some people you'll never notice a difference. With others, the tiniest bit of, say, red dye will make them hyper, violent, you name it. Synthetics are a major reason why ADHD has become epidemic.

For me, synthetics were making me more impulsive and a bit mean. Nothing dramatic but switching to a clean diet made a noticeable difference in my psychology and I'm in better shape now too.

Keeping synthetics out of your diet can be difficult. It helps if there's a nearby Whole Foods Market or similar store that bans all synthetics. There is NO REASON for synthetics in food other than that they save food processors from having to buy real ingredients.

Why haven't you heard more about this? Who's going to pay for the research? It won't lead to a prescription drug, surgery, or any other medical intervention. It'd wipe out most of the market for ADHD meds (not all, some people have congenital neurochemical imbalances). It would require people to learn how to cook again.

I think there may be a correlation between consumption of unhealthy food, and quality of parenting. Parents who do a good job tend not to encourage consumption of junk food. The same parents steer their kids away from becoming criminals.

Makes me wonder. My 3 year old likes crackers and chips just fine but prefers steamed vegetables. (absolutely adores peas but then again, he tends to count them before he eats them) He doesn't care for candy of any kind, can't get him near ice cream and will barely eat doughnuts or sweet pastries. I don't force anything on him at all in terms of foods he likes and pretty much let him choose his favorites on his own. (Would I intervene if he was predisposed to sweets? yeah, probably.) So far, he likes "

Oddly enough my sons eight year old classmate was over for dinner today. He ate his dinner without being prompted, a vast improvement over my son. He is from a bigger and less well off family, and is expected to look after himself in situations where my son would be coddled and hand fed by myself and my wife.

So yeah its hard raising kids well. I don't claim to do the best job of it. Most of us control our offspring to some degree, getting it right at the start is an important trick. Knowing when to let go l

I'm not intending to be rude, but it sounds like the problem is your wife's parenting, not yours. Kids tend to live up to their expectations. Even my 9 month old will listen to us and behave a certain extent. He stays away from cords (or looks at us as he goes for them, just being a pain), but he knows cords are something he should not play with.

agggh! Read this: The study controls for teachers' reports of aggression and impulsivity at age 10, the child's gender, and parenting style.

Do you think scientists with >10 years training know less about statistics than you? They actively try to exclude other causes, which is what "controls for" means. Any other ideas for root causes that do not include those controlled for? Or were you just trying to be smart with a nice one-liner because it worked so well for others?

"A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry links daily consumption of candy at the age of 10 to an increased chance of being convicted of a violent crime by age 34"

It doesn't say how much of an increased chance, and whether or not other rewards (such as toys, or non-candy foodstuffs) would also increase this. Is it the candy that's causing the impulsive behaviour or the rewards themselves? If it's the Candy, which chemical, or mixture of chemicals, is causing it and is it contained in all candy

Eating Candy at the age of 10 does not put you in jail 24 years later???
Yet improving the diet of jail populations does seem to reduce violence too.http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/oct/17/prisonsandprobation.ukcrime [guardian.co.uk]
Thankfully smart people around the world will follow this up and I hope get some idea of diet, a spike in sugar, hormones, brain activity and ongoing development.
It might the a cheap colouring, cheap high-fructose corn syrup like structure or amount consumed during development.

What? Where are you from, China? In my country (USA) I know exactly what goes into all food items, because they have to list every ingredient right on the packaging. And they aren't "rules", they are LAWS that state what you can and cannot put into edible items.

Ah, but that means the study is measuring the wrong thing doesn't it? If the child eats candy, but also eats a well-balanced diet, then does he belong in this group? If the answer is no, then the metric they're using is flawed.

Not directly, but the article does give sample size information and goes on to state: "About 69 percent of those who reported having committed violent acts also reported eating candy daily at age 10, compared to 42 percent of those who did not have a violent criminal past, the study authors noted."

Then again, even if you were correct I'm not sure what the point of bringing it up was. Read the full study if you're actually interested in what its findings are.

Is it the candy that's causing the impulsive behaviour or the rewards themselves?

A perfectly valid question. A little reading comprehension would indicate that they're not sure, given that two different groups are hypothesizing two different explanations based on the same data. In fact you've merely restated the two positions as a question.

If it's the Candy, which chemical, or mixture of chemicals, is causing it and is it contained in all candy?

Well, you're getting on the pedantic side now so far as criticizing the study goes. But yes, if it turns out to be the contents of the candy itself I'm sure they'll investigate that further. Unless you demonstrate who's saying that candy is the actual cause of the increased violence though, I'm not sure what the question has to do with what you quoted for your response, nor to what degree your new post somehow explains what you originally said.

Yes, correlation is not causation, and that's important to distinguish. If you're not simply going for brownie-point mods, then you're going to have to explain who said otherwise. Yours was a root comment, without parent, so one has to assume you're talking about the article. Well, it's not the title, which simply says "linked." Nor the summary, which explicitly uses "correlation." And hell, the article itself actually uses the phrase "correlation never shows causation." So other than the cheap mod points you're accused of, what the hell were either of your posts trying to accomplish?

My suspicion is that you're one of those people who thinks repeating memes without even a cursory examination of what he's referring to makes you sound smarter. If that's the case: No problem, carry on. Otherwise I suggest you articulate what value you're trying to add to the conversation more clearly.

Another correlation I have observed is that in 100% of all cases, Triple Felon Inmates with Diabetes do not eat candy, for long. Also, another observation, Researchers with nothing to show for their work can behave in predictable natures.

Do not conflate psychiatry and psychology. Psychiatry is a science, and uses an evidence-based system along with falsifiable theories. Psychiatry focuses on chemical imbalances in the brain and psychiatrists mostly prescribe drugs to control these chemical imbalances.

Psychology is a also a science, though theories are not all 100% evidence based. However, increasingly, the field of psychology has been becoming more scientific and following more scientific principles. Even the still very prevalent but som

As far as I have seen, psychology students get a way better statistics education than any other field (e.g. CS, Astronomy, Physics, Medicine).Generally, if you're a scientist, your knowledge of statistics should be good (confidence intervals and hypothesis testing come to mind).

We taxpayers in today's semi-socialist Europe are constantly told that social security, unemployment benefits, welfare (and of course taxes) MUST be that high to keep poor people from starving - and rioting.

So we are told we're pacifying potential rioters by giving them money. Actual riots are always treated with more money. Most parties on the left and right tell us that all violence and problems will simply go away when we give poor people more money.

No, we in "today's semi-socialist Europe" are not told that social security is to prevent riots, neither constantly nor only now and then. I was going to say that I'm not saying you're lying, but you are: show me where they say that (party sources, not internet dweebs like yourself), and show me sources for the daily riots in Paris, Berlin and Malmo.

Basically, you support your "argument" with nothing but utter bullshit. That ought to tell you something about yourself.

17,000 tests, and 35 yes count them 35 had a violent crime. Of those 35, 65 percent said that they ate candy whereas in the 17000 only 42 said so.

See the flaw? The flaw is that the pool size of the violent criminals is actually way too small. Instead what they need to do is go to the prison system and see if the 65% number holds up. Because only with a big enough pool size can something be said.

Right now this study is crap, because the results could be the result of a sampling flaw.

If anything can be said of this study is that you need to verify it with the prison system.

While I agree that a sample of 35 isn't great statistics, the odds of having 69% of them in the candy-eating category if they WERE the same as the background population is under 0.05%, as I'm sure you know. (I just did a Monte Carlo simulation with 100000 trials.) So it's not the best study in the universe, but this is real human data: you take what you can get, particularly in sample size. It's not enough of a study to drive policy, but it's certainly enough to be publishable and enough to warrant further attention.

Instead what they need to do is go to the prison system and see if the 65% number holds up.

While they are doing this in prison, they could investigate the dangers of breast milk. I am sure that a high percentage of criminals have been fed breastmilk and thus it will proove the dangers of it.

This is not even to mention that all of the data are entirely anecdotal -- and we are talking about children recalling childhood. The accuracy of adult memory has shown to be extremely suspect, never mind trying to remember what you used to eat when you were 7. Did I eat candy every day when I was 7? I have no frickin' clue! That is way too long ago for me to accurately remember. This is just bogus, bogus, bogus research all around.

I'm sorry to say it Matt, but Canazza has a point, in this particular example it really doesn't seem to be proven that this correlation does indeed = causation. How do we know that this is not a case of genetics -- impulsive, violence-prone parents pass the genes for their impulsive behavior down to their child. The child, by their genetic information, is already more likely to be impulsive and violent. The parents, being impulsive, are going to be more likely to reward their child gratuitously often. By th

The study controls for teachers' reports of aggression and impulsivity at age 10, the child's gender, and parenting style.

That still does not imply causation, merely much more tight correlation. It could be that violent people simply like candy more, not that the candy led an otherwise good child to grow into a violent offender. It could be that there is yet another cause, beyond what the researchers controlled for, that is the cause of both the sweet tooth and violent behavior.

correllation is not causation?agggh! Read this: The study controls for teachers' reports of aggression and impulsivity at age 10, the child's gender, and parenting style.
Do you think scientists with >10 years training know less about statistics than you? They actively try to exclude other causes, which is what "controls for" means. Any other ideas for root causes that do not include those controlled for? Or were you just trying to be smart with a nice one-liner because it worked so well for others?

It is entirely possible that he *does* know more about statistics than these researchers. As someone has already observed, the statistics behind this research are essentially flawed by having too small a pool size of violent criminals. I could point out a couple of other flaws in the study, including the question of how effective their approach to controlling for aggressivity is, but that seems unnecessary.

More importantly, correlation is not causation! It doesn't matter if you've corrected for a few fac

More importantly, correlation is not causation! It doesn't matter if you've corrected for a few factors. Even if you corrected for every possible factor, the possibility would remain that both events had some shared cause.

Which is causation. It's C causing A and B, not A causing B (or B causing A) but it's still a causation.

Do you think scientists with >10 years training know less about statistics than you?

If they are so-called "Social Scientists", then yes I do.
I have met several full professors in the Social Sciences whose ignorance of basic probability is shocking.
And, if you don't understand probability, you will never understand statistics.

Uh-oh. We've never spanked our kid and we let her keep a jar of candy in her room. 'Course, she's never been in any trouble at school, home or when away (Brownies, sleep overs). And before every candy holiday (Halloween, Christmas, Easter), we have to throw out all the left over candy. Darn kid seems to like eating vegetables more than candy. Weird!

And now that I think about it, my sister and I were never spanked growing up. And since we were raised by a single Mom who worked two jobs, we were pretty much a

Pro dog trainer here with 40 years experience. I an adamantly against using food rewards, primarily because it inverts the master/underling relationship (it also actively prevents the trainer from learning to accurately read the dog's responses).

As it works in nature, the *underling* offers a treat to the =master= ("see? I'm useful! don't kill me!"), who then may OPT to graciously "share" part of it with the underling. (We even see this in the human workplace, where the underlings' labour brings in a profit

There has never been a *randomized* control clinical trial showing smoking causes cancer in humans. If you believe smoking causes cancer in humans, then you are somehow making an exception of your own rule. So, do you?

Good luck on that. Given that:
Our government's (US) official recommended diet is something like 80% sugar.
The medical and insurance industries that are considered 'experts' by the population (including those that would make school corriculum) us BMI as gosple.
The vast majority of the population think that Calories Eaten - Calories Burned is exactly how you adjust diet for healthy eating.
I don't see how you could ever hope to get schools to teach proper nutrition. Of course, they try, and in trying,